The Blum-Viollette proposal takes its name from Maurice Viollette

Maurice Viollette

Maurice Viollette was a French statesman.He was chief-of-staff for Alexandre Millerand in the Waldeck-Rousseau government in 1898, and was elected as a député for Eure-et-Loir in 1902 and as mayor of Dreux from 1908–1959.He acted as Transport and Supply Minister in 1917, Governor General of...

, who acted as the French premier and governor-general of Algeria

Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

, which was the subject of the proposed legislation. The proposal was introduced to the Popular Front

Popular Front (France)

The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...

 government of France in 1936, and aimed to address the issue of longstanding French colonialism in Algeria.

The proposal suggested that a minority of Algerians obtain full French citizenship

Citizenship

Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...

 while still allowing them to be subject to Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 law on some social issues (such as marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

/divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

, custody

Child custody

Child custody and guardianship are legal terms which are used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent and his or her child, such as the right of the parent to make decisions for the child, and the parent's duty to care for the child.Following ratification of the United...

, inheritance

Inheritance

Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...

). It proposed to offer these benefits to the highly educated, as well as to those Algerian men that served in the French military, with the plan to widen the benefits to other groups at a later date.

Perhaps unfortunately, the proposal never made it to the French Chamber of Deputies

Chamber of Deputies

Chamber of deputies is the name given to a legislative body such as the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or can refer to a unicameral legislature.-Description:...

 for a vote because of the massive protest offered by French settlers in Algeria. It was the failure of this and other such proposals that eventually led to the emergence of violent activists like the Algerian National Liberation Front

National Liberation Front (Algeria)

The National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France.- Anticolonial struggle :...

and other militant groups designed to reclaim sovereignty for Algeria by force.